Stan Lee Sued!

Marvel Discusses Distribution [Fandom]
Sticking with Diamond. Going to make more trades, and get them into bookstores. Maybe Marvel started those rumors about leaving Diamond to get a better deal out of them?

An interview with Mike Friedrich, who was instrumental in the creation of many comics institutions, most significantly the Direct Sales Market [today's Splash]

Among his many points:

A trade paperback competes for today's entertainment dollar- a three-buck comic does not.

More non-superhero content is needed.

A new distribution channel is needed. Right now we have a bad situation all along the line: a monopolistic distributor, sending comics mainly only to direct sales comic book shops, which have survived by shifting their product mix away from comics. Maybe the future of comics resides in the traditional book industry.

Baby boomers are in a kind of perpetual childhood, which is nice, but it means with them at the top, the comics industry right now lacks the required leadership.

Rumors that Marvel is pulling out of the direct sales market entirely, or maybe it's just dropping its exclusive distribution deal with Diamond. Anyway, it sounds like Marvel's is doing something to increase outlets for comic sales.

Marvel Direct Sales Over 90% of Single Copy Sales: And Other Info from Marvel's Annual Report [ICv2 via Splash]
But are Marvel's newsstand sales so paltry, that they should be embracing Direct Sales and writing other outlets off?

Marvel says that the decline of comics since 01995 was because of a decline in the quality of comic book stories, and because the speculator/toy market drying up closed a lot of places that sold comics.

Review of Defenders #4 (Spoilers)

The issue is just plain difficult to enjoy.

A positive: The art is still not an obstacle for me. I'm actually getting used to the artistic style. Frenz stays close to Larsen's precedent, but he draws Doc much better, much less weasel-like, more like a noble man.

First, the characterization totally sucks. I'm aghast that a letter-writer in the book claims it's dead-on. Everyone has their own idea of what a character should be like, eh?

Doc is once again a cold, heartless robot. This is a man who has struggled to have both love/humanity, and his great responsibilities, in his life at the same time. Never has he been this distant. Doc is totally ineffectual, whiny and boring. All he's done so far is energy blasting that hasn't worked, exclaiming things like, "They resist even the Bolts of Balthaak!"

The Hulk giving someone a raspberry? Too playful for the Savage Hulk.

Namor is such an insufferable jerk that I find I'm actaully rooting for Attuma to take him down a notch. And I like rooting for Namor.

Even when Surfer is narrating, he's phoning it in from the background. He's also a robot. One of the core elements of his character is his love for Earth and its people. Even when he was trapped here, it would persist. His narration starts with this love. But now he is sick of humanity? So in other words, this progression of his character has reduced him to just another aloof cosmic energy blaster. Yawn.

The story is stretched to the breaking point to get a new Valkyrie in the team and back to her status quo with sword and mount. Since she's not the same Val as before, we care nothing for her yet.

Nighthawk and Hellcat are indistinguishable, annoying cheerleaders. The Big Four have been tolerating so little from each other- I'm surprised they haven't reduced these two to ashes yet.

Second, we are robbed of our final battle of the Defenders competently spanking Pluto. Pardon the pun: "Zeus ex machina." I mean, we know Zeus is coming to save the day, and that's fine. The $64 story-writing question is: Under what circumstance is Zeus going to arrive? Well, he arrives in a situation devoid of any tension or resolution, timed too early for us to see a great fight.

ComicsML: A Simple Markup Language for Comics [XML.com via Slashdot]
A proposal to apply XML to comics online, primarily to further searchability and accessibility. Very cool. As If I didn't have enough incentive already to master XML, XSL, etc.
ComicsML Resource Page

Dynamic Forces Employs The Ultimate Huckster - Stan Lee! [Silver Bullet]
No- the ultimate hucksters are Dynamic Forces, and their stupid special covers and signed collectibles. Too bad Stan is linking up with them. And on the Home Shopping Network, no less. Let the suckers and speculators line up!

Are comics anti-cyclical? [Mercury News via Splash]
"Money's tight, Maw- cancel the cable and get the boys some a dem comic stories." But if times are bad, who's going to buy all the Dynamic Forces shit?

NYC Comic Book Museum Event 'Beyond the Panels' Lets Fans Meet Industry Big Wigs [Silver Bullet Comics]
Geez. I didn't even know this event was happening. I didn't even know there was a comic book museum. And I live in NYC! Depressing.
Here's a link: [NYC Comic Book Museum] Aah- it's like a year old and doesn't even have a permanent space yet. Support it.

Comic Books: A Case Study for Redesigning Traditional Media and Assessing Entertainment Value [Carnegie Mellon University PDF via peterme.com]
"In this paper, we describe an experiment designed both to
determine the best way to put comic books in electronic
form, and to contrast the evaluation methods by which we
came to our decision."

Neilalien Vents Frustration

Flight of Bones follow-up shot down. Dr. Strange: Year One shot down. New horror Dr. Strange series likely only a silly rumor. No Doc movie news on Corona for a year. Larsen's crappy art scaring people off who would otherwise buy Defenders... Need a breather. Please send Neilalien some love and support.

Yay! I can only assume that Marvel thought they could do better reaching more younger readers and more female readers starting from scratch with a different property- or this would never have been considered for cancellation.

From the same Fandom Daily Feed: Marvel to release twelve comic-book-sized big trading cards in July. Black Widow is one of the twelve, but not Doctor Strange. And Wolverine is on two. No respect. Ugh. Well, Wolverine sells a whole lot more than Doc these days.

I have the same paradoxical, mixed, ambivalent opinion about Larsen that I have about Kirby. I find their art to be crapola, yet exciting graphical storytelling. I can't give the art a ringing endorsement- but it certainly does not render the book unviewable. We wouldn't have a new Defenders series at all if Larsen didn't give a damn, so he comes with the package- and I'm going to buy Defenders regardless, because of Doctor Strange. So personally, I'm going to suck it up and concentrate on the positives. Doc's portrayal in the book so far has been crapola as well, and I'm still sucking that up too. Doctor Strange fans can tolerate a lot- we've had plenty of practice.

Corrections and apologies have been added and now appear at the bottom of the page of the Trials of a Comic Book Hero story: Peter Paul was never convicted of selling heroin, has had only three wives not four, and was only suspended not disbarred. But did he still rip off Stan Lee? No corrections there. [The Standard; correction spotted by ComicGeek]
Do I spy that the printable version of the story still has no correction blurb?
Neilalien is really getting sick of blogging this saga.

I found Marvel's Annual Report to be good reading; Toy Biz getting some heavy surgery [Yahoo Finance]

New Doctor Strange Series Rumor!!!

Today's All The Rage column at Silver Bullet Comics has a set of three Marvel rumors regarding the Startling Stories line: one item says Doctor Strange is one of the books. Joe Q gave the whole bit a 30% accuracy. Since the other two items sound more unbelievable, Neilalien is stoked that the Doc item is the correct one!
But probably, the Witches news item is the only corrent Doc item today.

Making The Comic Book Weblog Rounds

Fandom, Inc. To Be Acquired and Slim Down Its Online Operations [Press Release, Open Letter to Fans]
They had some good content, I've linked to them often, who knows what will survive the "slim down"- and I hate to see comic book websites die- but I'll never forgive those bastards for going after people with "fandom" in their URLs [Who Owns Fandom? Salon story]

Bendis more reacts to Larsen's unclassy attack rather than address the points that Larsen and I agree on, but out of fairness, an equal time link: Bendis Responds To Larsen [Savage Dragon Forum]

A nod to ComicGeek for a very comprehensive first month blogging comic book news. Great work and good luck! I want to give a nod to Glitterdammerung! as well, but have they stumbled with no posts the last couple weeks after such a good start? I'm happy to give props to these endeavors- my attempt to blog all comics news went down in flames very quickly!

Entries for The 2001 5k Competition are due April 8. I'm quite bummed- I just don't feel like I have the free time this year to follow-up my 2000 entry Excite My Chicken. I'd love to participate, and replicate the completely fun experience of sharing my Chicken with the world.

It's described as the Magical Marvel Universe's equivalent to Charlie's Angels, with Doc as Charlie. The three female leads are Topaz (Yay!), Satana and Jennifer Kale (from Man-Thing). Browyn Carlton writes, Mike Deodato pencils, Lysa Hawkins edits- I don't know their work personally but I hear that's a good team.

I'm happy that Marvel is committed to putting out books with strong female leads. I'm happy that Doc will be getting more exposure. I support any book in which Doc appears. But I'm totally disappointed.

Charlie's Angels mixed with Charmed. Unoriginal. The premise isn't new again yet.

I'm aware of the coven angle- but why can't women be portrayed as strong solo? Sexism?

Doc sounds like he will be in the role that I most despise: Aloof Watcher to the Marvel Mystic Realm. Boring. Although there is a promise of on-panel time for Doc.

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